WHAT?
by Revan's split personality
Summary: A shameless 'self-insert', to an extent. Huzzah for bottomless RPG pockets and looting corpses! Rating may change with additional chapters. WARNING: Has SWEARING.
1. LOLwut?

**Title: **WHAT!?

**Q: **"Hey, why that title?"

**A: **Because that's what I'm asking myself right now, along with the questions "WHY!?" and "SERIOUSLY!?"

**Q: **"So… 'what', 'why' and 'seriously'?"

**A: **A self-insert fic (well, kind of. In the general spirit of practically everything I write, this is a parody, only a lot more so in this case), because it's late and it seems like a good idea at the moment, and yes. Seriously. Except, not serious…if that makes any sense at all.

Moving along with the agenda, the **DISCLAIMER**: All characters belong to their respective creators/owners. Star Wars universe belongs to George Lucas, whether he likes it or not. All rights reserved, yadda yadda blah blah blah.

**WARNING:** May include Satanic rituals, references to other video games, and traces of peanuts.

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I sat in my room and sighed while giving the book in front of me a good thump. "Argh! I got the right candles, set them up in the correct symbol, and even said these stupid words in the generic monotone chanting voice that YouTube video told me to use! What else do you want, you prick!?" I kicked the book away from me and crossed my arms. "I should have known that trying to contact the devil was futile, since I'm atheist and everything. That does it! Next time I go to the mall I'm retuning this stupid Satanic spell book and getting the one on necromancy!" I blew out all of the candles and shoved them into a drawer violently. Blowing some stray hairs out of my face, I let my shoulders sag in defeat as I got changed for bed.

What a waste of -I checked my watch- ten minutes. Ten minutes! I shook my head as I crawled under the covers and hunkered down into a somewhat comfortable position. It was midnight, and I felt my eyelids grow heavier and heavier as I watched the glowing red numbers of my alarm clock slowly change.

11:58 pm

11:59 pm

12:00 am

12:01 am

The next time my eyes opened, I found myself in a realm of muted grey. Everything felt muffled, like I was trapped in a dense fog, except as far as I could discern, there was no fog at all. I quickly got to my feet and spun around to get a good view of everything around me. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything there for me to see except seemingly endless grey. I spun around a few times to make sure I didn't miss anything before setting off in a completely random direction. I had been walking for a few minutes before I saw a vague outline in the distance. Squinting, I increased my pace to a steady jog and watched as the outline became progressively sharper. Eventually I found myself standing in front of an antique dark wood desk. There was nothing on it other than a small bell, and no one sitting behind it. I glanced around me warily before giving the bell a tentative ring.

Nothing happened.

I rang the bell again, this time harder. The soft chime echoed through whatever plane I was on, but still nothing happened. I was about to ring it again when a large burst of flame erupted directly behind the desk. I instinctively shielded my eyes with my arm, and when I lowered it I saw a well groomed middle-aged man in a classic black suit sitting primly behind the desk. He tilted his head downward and gave me a discerning look over the rim of his half-moon shaped glasses.

" Alexis Franks, I presume?"

I gaped at the man. "What? How did you know my name?"

He rolled his eyes. "They always ask that." He shook his head and pulled a folder out of a drawer. Opening it, he sifted through the sheets and pulled one out with a triumphant 'ah'. Pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, he read over the page, silently mouthing the words. After a few moments, he set the sheet of paper down and looked at me again. "Well, you seem to have a rather good head on your shoulders, so I assume you know what you're getting yourself into here. I'll spare you the speech."

I cocked my head to the side. "What the hell are you talking about, buddy?"

The man rubbed his temples wearily. "Maybe I overestimated your intelligence after all."

"Shut up and tell me what you want!"

He looked up at me. "It's not what _I_ want, it's what _you_ want. _You_ are the one who completed the ritual, not me."

"Ritual?" I screwed my face up in a strange attempt to figure out what this man was talking about. Then it hit me like a ton of, I don't know, hamsters. I would say bricks, but _everyone_ says bricks. "Oh, you're the devil?"

He raised his eyebrows and chuckled. "Of course not! I'm just an…_emissary_. I work out the contracts that my boss, 'the devil', decides to grant. He's very discerning, you know. You should feel honored."

I wasn't sure what to feel. I bit my lip and hummed. "Hm. 'Kay then. I'm assuming that this contract comes at the usual price?"

"Your soul." The man nodded and smiled comfortingly at my worried look. "Don't worry so much. Hell isn't _nearly_ as bad as you think it is. Sure, we don't have ice cream, but there's all the hot springs you want!" The man laughed at his own joke, but quickly stopped and cleared his throat. "Anyway, let's negotiate some terms here. You never said what it was you wanted, after all."

"Oh, yeah. Well…" I kicked at the ground, which spat up a small cloud of grey dust. "You'll probably think I'm stupid…"

"Undoubtedly, but don't feel too bad. I'm sure I've heard worse, no matter what you want."

"Yeah, that's so comforting." I replied dryly. "Anyway, what I want is…I want to be the main character in the Knights of the Old Republic game!"

I swear, if the man had been drinking anything, he would have spat it out at a surprising velocity. He stared at me wide-eyed for a moment. "And you want to sell your soul for _that_."

I nodded.

Sighing, he pulled another piece of paper out of the folder and began writing on it with a quill he pulled out of nowhere. "It's _your_ soul, I guess." He finished off with a flourish and spun the paper around so it was facing me. "Right. Now if you'd be so kind as to sign on the bottom line, we can get this over with."

I looked down at the paper and skimmed over it. It was a contract. I read it over quickly and found that everything was laid out in clear terms…no confusing clauses, no fine print. I was suspicious, but figured that I was probably going to hell anyway, so why not? I looked around for a pen or something I could use. "Um…do you anything I can use to sign this?"

He smiled patronizingly at me. "Give me your hand." I held out my hand to him. He grabbed it and swiftly pulled a blade across my palm, causing me to cry out in surprise more than pain. He twisted my hand and pressed it down firmly onto the sheet. As soon as he let go, my hand recoiled and I closely examined my palm.

"Ow! You could have warned me! Besides, I don't think that counts as me signing willfully!"

He clucked his tongue at me humorously as he straightened up the papers and slipped them back into the folder. "You're dealing with the _devil_, my dear. Have a nice time." He winked at me mischievously before disappearing in another burst of flames.

I groaned inwardly and wondered what the hell I had just gotten myself into, no pun intended. I would have mentally expounded on the issue if everything hadn't gone black.

Black, cold, and completely silent. I never thought it was possible to be deaf to your own thoughts, but I _was_, as far as I could tell afterwards.

I was suddenly jolted back to reality by a high-pitched siren that rang in my ears almost violently. My eyes flew open, and were met by the sight of a stark metallic ceiling.

_Wait…that's not right_…

I sat up quickly and took in my surroundings- I was in a small dorm room with two beds, two footlockers and a small table with two chairs. Everything was either white or metallic, and conspicuously clean. I flung my legs over the edge of my bed and noticed that I was in some weird spandex sleeping outfit or something. Then it hit me. I gasped loudly.

"NO…_WAY_!"

* * *

THE END! No, I'm kidding (unfortunately or otherwise). This was just to sort of...um...get the character into the game in a way that wasn't just 'ZOMG I JUST WOKE UP HERE WTF!?' And...eh, I don't have anything else to say. Review please.


	2. Endar Spire

**Endar Spire? More like Endar Blown-The-**_**Fuck**_**-Up.**

I looked around the room frantically, on the verge of a complete mental breakdown. I was there… I was _there_.

I WAS THERE.

I put my hand to my chest in a vain attempt to slow my rapidly beating heart, and flinched when the ship was rocked by an explosion. "Shit…" Suddenly, it didn't seem like coming here was such a good idea after all.

"Twenty-twenty hindsight, hm?"

I looked over to see the same man from the grey realm sitting at a small table, grinning from ear to ear. "Oh, don't worry, it isn't just you. I'd say in ninety-nine percent of such deals, people have absolutely no idea what they're asking for. Not that it stops us from granting it to them." He shrugged delicately, folding his hands on his lap.

"It's you! Oh, thank God!" I paused for a moment. "Um…well, you know what I mean."

He just sighed.

Clearing my throat, I continued. "Anyway, I think I made a mistake. Can I go back?"

He looked at me sympathetically. "Mmm, no. I'm afraid not." The deal appeared in a puff of smoke right in front of him, and he grabbed it while setting a small pair of spectacles on his nose. "Let's see…ah, here in the third paragraph. I won't bore you with the technical terms, but it clearly states that you must play out this scenario until the end, and then decide where to go from there."

"Wait…" I cocked my head to the side, trying to remember what I could from the contract. I certainly didn't remember _that_ part. "What do you mean I have to decide where to go at the end?"

He just smiled. "You'll just have to find out. Or die." He shrugged once again. "That tends to happen quite often. Good thing, too, or we'd be out of business." Chuckling at his own semi-joke, he quickly dispelled the contract in another puff of smoke and just grinned at me, his eyes glittering with what I assumed was either mischief or malice. It's hard to tell when you're dealing with a hell-spawn. "You should get ready, my dear. The plot is about to commence."

"What the hell are you talking about!? Let me see that contract again!" I turned suddenly as someone barged into the room, uninvited. It was that Trask Ulgo man from the tutorial. I stared at him wide-eyed as he gave me a wary look.

"Who were you talking to just then?"

"Uh…uh…" I glanced around the room, and indeed the other man had disappeared. "That was just my imaginary friend Horatio. He wears sunglasses and likes to solve crimes. Crimes that need to be solved." I flashed him a false smile for all of one second. "He only shows up in times of extreme mental and emotional distress."

"Whatever. You're here to fight, just remember that. And on that note, you might want to get up and dressed. The Sith have managed to board the ship, and we need to find Bastila!"

"Oh, right. Bastila." I got up and rummaged through the footlocker that was beside my bunk. I quickly pulled out the soldier uniform, a vibroblade, a blaster, and three medpacks. I pulled on the outfit and somehow managed to shove the blaster in a pocket. "Huh. Bottomless RPG pockets…I didn't know those were standard."

"What was that?" Trask looked at me, quite irritated. "Are you almost finished, or would you like to continue conversing with yourself?"

I scowled. "It's better than conversing with _you_." I walked over to the door and cursed when it wouldn't open. "What the hell??"

"You need the proper authorization codes to open this door. Here, let me." I moved out of his way and watched as he input a five-digit code.

"Why the hell does the door to MY dorm room need a code to be opened from the INSIDE!? So, people can just barge in, but they'd be stuck in here since they wouldn't have the code to get out? Did I get stuck with the room wired by the amateur who accidentally put the locking system in backwards?"

"We're in lockdown! Uh…" Trask bit his lip and tried another five digits. The door gave a very negative-sounding chime, and he cursed. "Shit! Now we have to wait five minutes for it to reset itself!"

I stared at him in disbelief. "WHAT!? NO! FUCK THIS SHIT!" I pulled out my blaster and shot the number pad. It let out a chorus of dying beeps before exploding in a shower of sparks. The doors opened halfway, then stopped. Trask gave me an annoyed look.

"Good job, lady. Do you know much it's going to cost for the Republic to fix that?"

"Dude," I slipped through the doors and shuffled down the empty hallway that ended in another closed door. "Do you seriously believe this ship is going to survive this attack?"

"If we act fast enough, it might!" He slipped through the door and caught up to me.

I shook my head. "We're _way_ beyond that point." I stopped in front of the door and sighed. It was locked. "You know the code to this-" I was cut off as a device that somehow ended up on my wrist chimed loudly. I looked at it and saw Carth's face on a small screen. "I wonder if I can download movies onto this thing…"

"This is Carth Onasi- the Sith are threatening to overrun our position! We can't hold out long against their firepower! All hands to the bridge!"

Just as quickly as the thing started up, the picture faded to black, leaving me to stare in befuddlement. "What will going to the bridge do, besides making us easier to kill since we'll all be in one convenient location?"

Trask just stared at me for a moment. "You know, I overheard talk about you being the sharpest soldier around. Apparently, you have a lot of potential." He pouted angrily. "You should try using some of it."

"H'ok!" I pulled my blaster out and aimed between his eyes, causing him to reel back a few feet, covering his face with his arms.

"WHOAH! What're you doing!?"

I shrugged. "Exercising my potential, dumbass. By shooting you in the _face_." He flinched as I motioned towards him angrily with my blaster. "That's what you suggested, isn't it?"

"Uh…how about you start by opening that door? I don't have the code for that one."

I rolled my eyes. "If you didn't have the code, _why_ did you use it?" I aimed at the door's control panel and shot it with much the same result as before. Trask slowly edged away from the wall and huffed in exasperation.

"Because I had to get _you!_"

"Yeah, whatever." I walked out the door just in time to see one Republic soldier gunned down by two Sith soldiers before he even had the chance to raise his blaster. I shook my head at the obvious incompetence of the side I was (unfortunately) allied with.

"These must be the Sith's advance boarding team!" Trask bellowed at the top of his lungs, standing in the middle of the hall without cover, while pointing at the Sith with one arm and flailing the other around violently. "FOR THE REPUBLIC!"

Before I knew what was happening, Trask pulled out his blaster and began to shoot wildly at the Sith, managing to get them rather annoyed and confused. I took a moment to smack my forehead with my palm before taking cover in the hallway we had just come out of. I pulled around the corner enough to have a clear view of my targets, and managed to shoot them both down with relative ease. Feeling a bit more confident that I wouldn't, in fact, get slaughtered within the first ten minutes I was there, I made my way over to the corpses and began to rummage through their pockets for anything useful.

"What are you doing?"

I ignored Trask and triumphantly pulled another two medpacks off the corpses, along with a few frag grenades. I stood up and looked at Trask. "I'm looting the corpses. It's not like they're going to complain or anything." I kicked one corpse in the head to illustrate my point, and could practically hear the little 'dark side indicating jingle' playing in the background. He gave me a look that one would normally reserve for greasy scumbags or Scientologists before continuing down the hall. I followed, under that assumption that he knew where he was going. We easily dispatched the small groups of Sith we met along the way, and eventually made it to the bridge. By this point, I was quite confident in my very limited array of skills, and I opened the door without hesitation just in time to watch everyone in the room somehow get the shit blown out of them.

"HOLY _SHIT!_" I jumped backwards and hid behind the doorframe for a moment. When I didn't hear any more blasts, I peeked around the corner and scanned the room quickly before entering. Trask was looking at me oddly again, and muttering under his breath. Probably something to do with 'the farm' or 'shiny objects'. Either way, I didn't care, and I went about the business of looting the corpses once again, much to Trask's obvious chagrin.

"Do you _have_ to do that?"

I stood up from rooting through the pockets of a dead Republic officer and glared at Trask. "Do you _have_ to blink? Look, it may not be completely _necessary_, but until I start spontaneously shitting medpacks and the like-and if that happened, I'd probably need all the medpacks I could get- I'm going to take advantage of every opportunity to get my hands on these supplies, okay? Now shut the hell up. You're distracting me from my looting of these burnt and horribly disfigured corpses." I checked the last guy and shoved everything I found into one of my pockets, amazed that it all fit and didn't seem to weigh me down in the least.

Trask was looking around the room worriedly. "We should probably move on as quickly as possible. I don't think this ship is going to last much longer." As if on cue, another blast rocked the ship hard enough for me to almost lose my balance. I quickly regained my composure and nodded.

"Agreed. Let's get the hell off of here. The escape pods must be this way, right?" I clumsily stepped over the corpses, cringing as someone's hand stuck to the bottom of my boot. "Eugh! That's _disgusting_!" I scraped the offending limb off my boot using the helmet on another corpse before continuing along, humming cheerily. "Oooh, that man's hand, scraped off my boot, his spirit must be pissed! If I wasn't already going to hell, it'd be just another point on the list!" We went through the doors and found ourselves in a small, random room with two other doorways in it. "Oooh, I loot all their corpses one by one, every single day! The only thing that would make it better is if I earned some pay!"

"SHH!" Trask hissed at me angrily and grabbed my shoulder. "I thought I heard something through the door there!" He pointed to the door on our left.

I looked at the door with a measured sense of apathy. It seemed inconspicuous enough, and I didn't hear anything other than the groaning steel of the ship. "Well, maybe you should go check it out, Mister Muscle-man McDude. You're the one with the balls, after all." I shoved him towards the door and gave him the thumbs up when he turned to look at me with a mixture of fear and hatred. "You can do it!"

He sighed and opened the door, only to be faced with Darth Bandon, who was randomly hanging out there. Probably smoking pot or something. Damn hippies. Trask stumbled back a few steps before spinning to face me. "I'll hold him off! You get to the escape pods!"

"Ummm…okay then." I shrugged as Trask ran back into the room and locked the door behind him. "What a douche." I continued on through the doors, and frowned as the comm. unit on my wrist beeped loudly. I glared at it irritably. "What?"

"I'm tracking you through the life support system. You're the only surviving member of the crew." Carth's image showed him standing in the escape pod room, typing something into a keyboard.

"Well…that's sort of depressing." I cocked my head to the side and grimaced. "Trask didn't even last all of five seconds."

"Huh?" Carth looked up quickly before shaking his head and returning his attention to the keyboard. "Anyway, you need to get to the escape pods."

"Way ahead of you buddy. I mean, sir. Way ahead of you, sir." I rooted through a random footlocker and found two vibroblades, a short sword, and a suit of light armor. I shoved it all in my magical pockets, assuming I didn't have time for a costume change, regardless of how badly I wanted to get out of the ugly blue soldier outfit I was currently wearing. I briefly wondered why I didn't have a uniform like the rest of the Republic soldiers on board, but figured that it really didn't matter anyway, since they were pretty ugly as well.

"Uh…good. You don't have much time. Also, sensors indicate a large group of Sith in the room ahead. If you have a stealth-field generator, you could probably sneak past them."

"Or I could just blow them up." I wandered over to a nearby computer console and fired it up. "Hey, any idea why this thing has a hacking tutorial?"

Carth was silent for a moment. "It has a _what_?"

"Eh, never mind." I quickly sliced into the system and overloaded the electrical conduit in the next room. I couldn't help but grin when I heard the soldiers in the next room over all scream in unison before falling to the ground in a lovely symphony of crashes, clanks and thunks. I opened the door, kicked a nearby droid that was already broken, and wrinkled my nose in distaste as the smell of roasted human flesh and burnt hair met my nostrils. "Okay, that is a _nasty_ smell." I ransacked the room as quickly as possible and bolted through the next door, closing it behind me quickly. I stood there, my back pressed against the door, until I realized I was at the escape pods and Carth was aiming his blaster at me. I instinctively raised a hand and flipped him the bird.

"So you lead me here just to point a blaster at my face?? What the hell, buddy? I mean, sir?"

Realization dawned on him, and he quickly holstered his weapon. "Sorry about that. I guess I'm still a bit on edge. Anyway, Bastila's escape pod is away, so she should be on the planet below by now."

"What if it wasn't Bastila who used the escape pod?"

He eyed me warily. "What do you mean?"

I shrugged. "Well, who's to say that it was actually Bastila who got into the pod and used it? I mean, what…did it have a 'reserved for the Jedi Bastila' sign hung on it or something?" I quickly shook my head as Carth began to reply. "Ah, never mind. I'm sure it was her. Let's just get off this thing before it blows the fuck up."

"Uh…yeah." He motioned for me to get in, and I did, with gusto. I didn't want to blow up with the damn ship. I didn't even like it. Carth quickly climbed in, closed the door, and punched a few codes into a small console. I quickly attempted to fasten my restraint belt, only to find that it was broken.

"Son of a _BITCH!_" I rammed the ends together in a vain attempt to have them lock, but to no avail. Carth had already fastened his belt and was about to try to help with mine when the pod was ejected. I quickly-_desperately-_ grabbed onto the hand grips that were on either side of my seat, and grit my teeth. After the initial jerk of the pod dislodging, there was a short period of smooth travel before it began to shudder and shake forcefully as it entered the planet's atmosphere. I held onto the grips so tightly I was sure they'd never be able to pry my hands off when they found my dead corpse in full rigor mortis.

The shaking got even worse, and I was about ready to shit my pants. I looked up at Carth, and he gave me a grim nod. "You better be holding on tight! We'll be hitting the surface any moment now!"

I wasn't sure if we had hit the surface or not, but the pod jerked violently, and blinding pain shot through my head and down my spine before everything went black.

Again. Whee.

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DISCLAIMER: I do not own Star Wars, CSI Miami, or anything that has to do with Scientology. I don't like Scientology. Not at all. That is my personal opinion, and if you don't like it, bitch at someone who gives a rat's ass, because I sure as hell don't.

Next up: Taris! Hopefully this will take me much less than, like, NINE CHAPTERS to get finished. I hate Taris. Gawd. I plan to have Taris done with in, at the most, three chapters. So if you don't care about Taris, you're going to have to wait a bit before we move on to the fun stuff.

Reviews are welcome and appreciated.


	3. Taris: Part One

* * *

Once again, I find myself proclaiming "I'm not dead! No, really! And I'm certainly not a zombie, after your delicious brains!"

* * *

The darkness that had engulfed me during our crash landed lifted briefly and revealed the scripted vision of Bastila fighting a few dark Jedi, then quickly took over my mind once again. My eyes flew open an undetermined amount of time later, and I quickly sat up, feeling unexpectedly spry for someone who had most likely received a rather serious head wound. I decided to not mention anything about that, if only for the fear that mentioning it would somehow negate the pleasantly healthy buzz I felt running through my body, and looked at my surroundings. Just as I had expected, I was on a bed within the abandoned apartment on Taris.

"Oh, hey! You're finally awake! It's good to see you up instead of thrashing around in your sleep."

I slowly shifted my gaze to look at Carth, who was standing a few feet away. I rubbed my face with my hands and sighed. "How long was I out for?"

I was mildly disturbed by the grim look on Carth's face. "About four days. You took a pretty good smack to the back of the head." I think he found my stare disconcerting, because he broke eye contact and shifted his weight nervously. Either that, or there was something he wasn't telling me. I decided it would be prudent to accuse him of both, but to not say anything about either. That would only cause problems, knowing Carth's character.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stretched. "Hey, you're name is Carth, right?" He nodded lightly. "Thanks for saving me and whatnot."

"You don't have to thank me. I never leave a soldier behind." He replied, a professional coldness to his voice. "I read on your dossier that you can speak a vast amount of alien languages. That'll come in handy here while we search for Bastila, I'm sure."

I simply shrugged. "Yeah, probably." I got to me feet and spotted my weapons in a neat pile on the floor at the end of my bed. I shuffled over to them and somehow managed to shove the blaster in my pocket and decided it would be best to walk around while holding my sword. Because that's what happy, sane, non-threatening people do in order to fit in. They walk around with swords drawn.

Deciding that that was another one of those points best left alone, I turned my attention back to Carth. "So, what have you found out about this planet?"

He took a deep breath. "Well, it's under Sith quarantine, for one thing. Well have to be careful to avoid drawing attention to ourselves." I nodded. "We should be safe in this apartment complex, though. I've heard rumours that Republic escape pods have been spotted in the Under city, but I'm not sure where or how to get there, let alone whether or not the information is reliable."

I nodded again and gave him an odd look as he stared at me expectantly. "Um…first off, let's find a medical center. Those tend to come in handy. Then let's head to the cantina to try to get more information about the escape pods. Then after that, we can kill some drunks in the street, take some credits off an old guy after we kill the thugs who were originally trying to extort him, threaten some children with physical violence along with extorting some credits from the alien they were harassing, and then…uh, well, we can play it by ear from there, I guess."

Carth furrowed his brows and stared at me, probably trying to figure out if I was serious or not. Apparently, his ponderings were inconclusive. "Uh…what?"

"It's a joke. Yes, a _joke_. Ha ha…ha." I looked around the room suspiciously. "Joke." There was an akward moment of silence. "Uh, well, we should probably get moving."

"Oh, yeah." Carth checked his blasters quickly before moving towards the door. "The sooner we start looking for Bastila, the better."

"I can't argue with that." I followed him out the door and stopped to watch as two duros were harassed by a Sith officer flanked by two combat droids. I frowned and wondered why the hell Carth and I didn't just turn around and head the opposite way, since the hall made one big circle. I snapped my attention back to the situation as the droids opened fire on one duros and the officer suddenly turned around for no apparent reason.

"Humans hiding out with aliens? You must be Republic spies!"

Because it couldn't be because we were poor, or just showed up and all the five star hotels were, unfortunately, filled, or that maybe we were cheap bastards who didn't want to pay anything for accommodations because we had better things to spend our money on, like booze. Nope. It was because we were _Republic spies_. Such infallible logic. It took me a moment to realize that the reason the Sith officer was staring at me with an evil glare was because I had just said that out loud without realizing it.

Oops.

Deciding it would be best to take advantage of the situation while the opportunity was still there, I quickly raised my blade and stabbed the officer in the throat. Carth, getting the hint, drew his blasters and quickly disposed of the droids. I turned to him, my blade raised. "Do you notice anything weird here?"

He cocked his head to the side. "Uh…no?"

I pointed to the shiny blade. "I just stabbed a man in the throat and there's no blood on my sword. In fact, there's no blood _anywhere_." I motioned with my free arm to the area around me. "It's completely clean, almost as though no violence took place at all. How odd." I pursed my lips and turned to the duros, ignoring Carth's blank stare. "Hey. How's it going?"

The alien looked at the corpse of his fallen friend and shook his head. "Poor Ixil. I told him to keep his mouth shut. Thank you very much for your help, strangers."

"Um, okay." I shrugged and rooted through the Sith officer's pockets. I found fifty credits and a frag grenade. Yay. "What are you going to do about the dead things here?"

"I'll clean them up before the next patrol comes down. Don't worry about it."

I eyed the alien suspiciously. "You say that like you've had to do this before and, at some point, became quite comfortable with the thought of having to hide corpses. I find that slightly disturbing, since I'm assuming you already have a good corpse-hiding spot picked out somewhere. Well, good luck with that!" I shook the duros' hand and gave him a quick thumbs up before moving along, ignoring everyone else along the way to the elevator.

It was a quick and slightly unnerving ride in the stinky elevator before Carth and I were greeting by the glittery spires of the Upper City. Generic people milled about the streets, walking up and down and back and forth along short predetermined routes, along with a few Sith soldiers, adorned in their shiny armour. A couple meter off to my left was the escape pod Carth and I had been in. It was still smouldering, surrounded by rubble and completely ignored by everyone. I mean, there weren't even any cleaning crews working on removing it. They just _left_ it there, like some sort of abstract piece of art.

Once again, something not worth obsessing over.

We made our way up the street, and I had to turn around multiple times to make sure Carth was still keeping up. At one point, I felt the strange urge to talk to him, which was odd. I figured it was time for character development. Yay.

"Hey Carth…"

He looked at me. "What do you need?"

"You look like something's bothering you." Here we go.

"Actually, I was just wondering something…tell me about what you think happened during the attack on the Endar Spire."

"Well, the ship was attacked, we didn't have enough time to react, and…" I shrugged. "You know pretty much everything beyond that point."

He nodded and narrowed his eyes slightly. "Mhm…and what was your position on the ship?"

I reciprocated his eye-narrowing. "I'm just a soldier. Is there something weird about that?"

He backed away slightly. "Hell no, unless you consider the fact that Bastila personally requested your transfer to the Endar Spire the day before it left."

I laughed loudly. "Oh shit, you got me. I'm actually Darth Revan, except I've had my memory wiped and altered by the Jedi council, and they have Bastila following me around in order to somehow find out what Malak and I found out in the edge of the galaxy that turned us, and how we had managed to amass such a huge fleet of ships and droids."

I couldn't resist.

"Look Carth…I had nothing to do with the attack on the Endar Spire, okay? Besides, if I was working for the Sith, I would have already turned you in and gotten my ass off this cesspool of a planet."

Carth frowned darkly. "How comforting."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever. If you want to believe I had something to do with the crash, go ahead and waste your time. I won't stop you." I crossed my arms angrily and glared at him.

He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Look…I'm sure you had nothing to do with the attack, but that doesn't mean I'm going to trust you, okay?"

"Fine!" I spat back angrily. "Don't think I'll trust _you_, either."

"Good!"

With that out of the way, we continued along the street. Thank _god_. All in all, I thought our conversation went rather well.

We quickly found Zelka's medical center and I quickly proceeded to break into the back area full of Republic soldiers floating in tanks of kolto. After assuring Zelka we weren't going to tell the Sith, and that we were Republic soldiers ourselves, I bought a few medpacks, chatted amicably about the Rakghoul disease and related cure, and then proceeded to bugger off. I stopped momentarily, taking advantage of the new actions I could complete as a fully-autonomous and non-scripted character, to punch the creepy assistant man in the throat before making my way to the cantina. Carth decided withhold comments.

Once we reached the Upper City cantina I made my way to a small room with a live band playing in it. Once again, the place was full of generic people, all standing still or walking along their short designated paths.

It was depressing.

I looked over to the corner where the off-duty Sith, who varied depending on the gender of the main character, should have been standing. Instead there was the man with my contract. He was leaning against the wall and lazily cleaning his monocle on his sleeve. I let out a small squeak, and he slowly raised his head to grin at me.

"Why, hello there stranger." His grin widened. I scuttled over and scowled.

"What the hell are _you_ doing here??" I hissed under my breath, casting Carth quick looks to see if had noticed me wander off to talk to a shady character standing in a dark corner. He hadn't.

The man replaced his monocle onto his face. "I'm an individual who takes pride in his work, and you seem to be… _dissatisfied_ with the situation here."

I cocked my head to the side. "Wait, what? What do you mean?"

"Well, my dear, it's obvious that you don't exactly enjoy the fact that this is, in fact, a virtual world you are currently residing in and, as such, has inherent flaws, as it were."

"Oh…" I paused. "Well…it does feel a bit _static_."

"Hm, yes. That's a common complaint. I did take the liberty to give your companion there a bit of extra flair, in case you didn't notice." He motioned towards Carth, who sighed and kicked at the floor with the toe of his boot, obviously bored. "He looks rather bored, doesn't he?"

"Yes, he does." I replied evenly.

"And, since this is what you gave up your _immortal_ _soul_ for and all, I believe that your quality of experience is of the utmost importance."

"How nice." I smiled dryly. "So what are you offering here?"

"I can make this more…_real_, if you like."

I pursed my lips in thought. "I'm not sure I want that. I do enjoy these bottomless RPG pockets quite a bit."

"Oh, by all means, keep the pockets. Their complementary." He gave me a toothy smile. "What I'm talking about here is enhancing the interactivity of the entire place, yes?"

I blinked a couple of times. "Can I think about this?"

"Oh, why of course! We'll be seeing each other again." He replied, almost ominously. "Take this." He handed me a napkin with directions to the Sith party on it. "Until next time!" With that, he sauntered out of the room primly. I blinked hard a couple of times before turning back to Carth.

"Who was that?"

I looked at him, frowning. "You know, I'm not entirely sure. I've only seen him a couple of times before." I forced a smile onto my face and handed Carth the napkin. "But I _did_ get us an invitation to a Sith party."

"Oh?" Carth's expression darkened. "And what good will that do us?"

"Well, he said that the people attending won't be returning to the Sith base to lock up their uniforms." My smile changed into a dark grin. "And I fully intend to get my hands on one of those uniforms."

Carth raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

I chuckled. "Oh, come on Carth. _Trust_ me." With that, I led us out of the cantina and towards the party. It wasn't hard, since you could hear the bass a kilometer away. When we actually got there, the character that was supposed to have met me in the cantina was standing there and greeted me happily as I walked in.

"Hey, you made it! I was afraid you weren't going to show up. The party's in full swing!"

I plastered a fake smile on my face and nodded constantly.

"You _have_ to try this Tarisian ale…it's fantastic! We should have conquered this planet ages ago!"

One of the other partygoers turned to the dude who's name I didn't know. "You better be careful. That ale is strong!"

"BAH!" Mister man waved at the other person dismissively. "Live a little, won't you? Besides, I don't have duty tomorrow. Let's drink!"

Everything suddenly went black and the distinct thumping noise of bodies hitting the floor was heard. Suddenly everything grew bright again to reveal the party was over and the ground was littered with the bodies of the unconscious party attendees. Strangely enough, there was not vomit, spilled drinks, or any of the other various gross stuff you usually find after everyone has passed out from excessive alcohol consumption. I began making my way to the far corner, not bothering to step over the multiple unconscious forms in my way, as Carth gave his head a mighty shake.

"That was odd…"

I stopped in my tracks and turned to look at him. Had he just made an intelligent observation outside his game character's parameters? For some reason, the hellspawn's earlier words made a lot more sense, in a very disturbing way. What if Carth started asking questions? Difficult questions, like 'how do you know your way around a city you've never been to before?' and 'what do you mean, 'plot point'?' I decided that, faced with that prospect, it would be best to convince Carth he was insane. "What was odd?"

"_That_." He motioned towards the room in general. "I mean, we just walked in, everything turned black, and now they're just…lying there."

I cocked my head to the side and cast him a worried look. "What are you talking about? Are you feeling okay?" I made my way over to him, making a point of stepping on as many limbs as possible (not unlike the 'The Floor is Lava' game I used to play as a kid) and pressed the back of my hand to his forehead. "Hn…maybe we should take you to the med center before we visit the Lower City."

I turned back and gracefully bounded over to the corner where a plain tan backpack was sitting. Upon opening it up, I was greeted by the glittery sight of Sith armour. I somehow managed to shove that into the pocket with the other various suits of body armour and random clothes and turned around to see, much to my amusement, Carth tentatively feeling the warmth of his forehead.

I sighed and quickly left the room, Carth close in tow.

"Did you seriously not notice everything go black for a moment?" Carth sped up his pace so he was walking beside me.

"Nope!" I chirped back, smiling. "But it's nice to know I have someone just as mentally unstable as me along for the ride. That always makes things more interesting. It's just so _boring_ when you're in a group and nobody else thinks it's a good idea to use ewoks to take over the galaxy. I mean, they're fuzzy, cute, and know how to carry a beat! If that's not a sure-fire way to conquer the galaxy, then I don't know what is!"

"Um…_right_. I'm just going to walk a couple of feet away from you now so people don't assume we're actually traveling together." He slowed his pace slightly so he was walking behind me again.

"Whatever you say, mister everything-went-black." I called over my shoulder, grinning. The walk to the elevator was rather uneventful, except for where I pushed those drunk characters over the railings. That was fun _and_ gave me dark side points!

Carth and I had stopped just around the corner from the elevator, and I took the opportunity to listen to the wonderful background music while formulating a plan of action so Mr. Autonomous Carth could follow along without me bitching at him every thirty seconds.

"Okay, so here's the plan…I'm going to put on the nifty Sith armour I nicked from the infamous blackout party, which will allow us to use the elevator. After that we're going to check out the cantina, since I'm sure we'll meet some interesting people there, and then we're going to cut a deal with the Hidden Beks swoop gang."

"Wait a minute…you're planning to ally yourself with a swoop gang?" Carth sputtered and looked at me like I had just vehemently insisted that two plus two equals orange. "Are you crazy??"

"Perhaps I am crazy…crazy like a _fox_! Now shut your face; I'm talking here." I flicked his forehead and scowled as he rubbed the assaulted area ruefully. "The gang will probably ask us to fetch something for them…typical. Anyway, we'll do that and whatever else comes along with that, because you know it can never be _that_ easy, and then that will magically lead us to Bastila." I nodded confidently to indicate I was finished and the floor was open for comments.

Carth stared at me in bewilderment, his jaw slack. He took a moment to gather his wits about him and carefully formulated his next phrase. "…you're serious, aren't you?"

I laughed jovially. "Of _course_ I am, you hairless wookie! Now come on! We're wasting valuable time here!" I reached into my rpg pocket and touched the Sith armour. "I would like to equip this, 'kay please thanks bye." When I pulled my hand out of my pocket, I was fully equipped in the Sith armour and feelin' sexy as ever. Carth gaped at me.

"How the hell did you do that!?"

"The same way I do this…" I reached into my pocket once again and grabbed on to a suit of modifiable Republic armour. "I would like Carth to have this equipped now." And, when I pulled my hand out of my pocket, Carth was indeed wearing the armour.

He looked at me like I had just split in two- with a mixture of awe and total horror. "But…how…"

"_Magic_." I waggled my fingers at him and frowned. "Now don't ask any more questions. You'll ruin the mystique of it all. Follow me."

We made our way towards the elevator, with Carth shuffling along with great trepidation. "I'm in Republic armour in the middle of a Sith occupied planet! Are you trying to get me killed??"

"Oh, settle down. These people aren't exactly Sherlock Holmes. Probably because they're Sith and not doing heroin, but that's beside the point, really. The point is you'll be fine." I patted his arm and smiled reassuringly, even though he couldn't see my face. Then, realizing he could see my face, I stuck my tongue out at him. Just for the hell of it. Well, it entertained _me_, anyway.

"Whatever you say." He grumbled back, looking rather bemused as we approached the Sith standing guard in front of the elevator. We stopped a few feet in front of him and he looked us over very thoroughly. _Very_ thoroughly.

"Hm, another patrol getting sent into the Lower City, huh? Good luck down there. I hear the swoop gangs are causing a lot of trouble…glad I'm not you."

"Yeah. Pink elephants prance down geranium lane cotton candy fungus!" I called back cheerily as I pushed a rather shocked Carth into the elevator and smacked the 'down' button with extreme prejudice.

"What the hell did you just say to him?"

I pulled off my helmet and glanced at Carth, his jacket seeming ten times brighter than it did with the helmet on. I squinted, much like one does when staring _directly at the sun_, and shrugged. "That was just to prove a point. These people…are _idiots_, Carth. Mindless drones." I paused thoughtfully. "Well, for now, anyway."

He narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously. "What do you mean by _that_?"

I grinned viciously. "Oh, _you'll see_…"

His suspicious quickly melted into nervousness at my expression and he began to shift his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. I turned my attention to my nails and patiently waited for the elevator doors to open and reveal grungy dimness of…the _Lower City_.

"Dun dun DUUUUNNNN!"

"Uh…" I looked over at Carth, who was starting at me uneasily again. "What was that for?"

"Oh, no reason."

He flashed me a confused smile before turning away, and I made a mental note to keep all foreboding-sounding musical chords in my head from that point forward, unless the situation warranted. Otherwise it was just awkward.

* * *

And there it was, people. A new chapter; a rarity (unfortunately) from me, to you. And, if you were wondering, I _will_ be updating my other stories. When? Um...hey, look! Something shiny! (flees)


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